Dawn leaks: Sharif’s special advisor held responsible

Islamabad, April 20 (IANS) Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Special Assistant on Foreign Affair Tariq Fatemi is expected to be removed from his position due to his alleged role in “leaking” to Dawn newspaper vital information from a National Security meet alleging a confrontation between the civil and military leadership, the media reported.

The government had set up an inquiry committee last year to probe the controversy surrounding a controversial report by daily Dawn about a key meeting on national security, Daily Pakistan reported.

Earlier, the committee removed Pervaiz Rasheed as Information Broadcasting Minister following the scandal.

The inquiry committee report said Fatemi was primarily responsible for leaking the minutes of the key meeting to the newspaper in October last year without due permission.

Sources said the report will be presented to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the next three to four days, and that in its wake it will now be difficult for Fatemi to maintain his position.

The committee, headed by Justice (retd) Aamir Raza Khan, included representatives of the Intelligence Bureau, the Military Intelligence and the Inter-Services Investigation.

On October 6 Dawn, Pakistan’s oldest and most prestigious English daily, published a sensational story headlined: ‘Act against militants or face international isolation, civilians tell military’. Written by Cyril Almeida, the newspaper’s best-known columnist, the story claimed that the Nawaz Sharif government had succeeded in getting the military to acknowledge the need to act against extremist groups employed in Kashmir and Afghanistan.

The Office of the Prime Minister strongly denied the contents and rejected it as a fabrication.